


Hard to Love

by ChElFi



Series: I Don't Dance [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 30 Day OTP Challenge, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain Hill - Freeform, Clintasha (developing), Day 13, F/M, POV Female Character, POV Natasha Romanov, Single POV, eating ice cream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 05:50:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2298731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChElFi/pseuds/ChElFi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1 bowl of ice cream + 2 lovers = more than Natasha wants to deal with at the moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard to Love

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thanks so much for all the faves, and follows, and comments. I really appreciate them.
> 
> So Day 13 is from Natasha's POV. The title is from the Lee Brice song. Lyrics mostly fit. :)

Natasha covertly watched the couple across the room. To the ordinary person, a pair of young lovers sharing a bowl of ice cream on a hot summer's day would not seem threatening at all. But Natasha knew better. Anyone was a potential threat. This couple in particular posed a serious danger, at least they did to Natasha.

It wasn't long ago that watching Steve and Maria together did nothing to Natasha more than make her want to roll her eyes. It was doomed from the start, she had figured. Like herself, Maria was incapable of any feeling resembling romantic love. So, when Maria had unceremoniously dumped Steve after he'd proposed to her, Natasha was the only person not even partially surprised.

It had been a relief, in some ways. An excuse to push aside all those questions she'd had about her feelings for a certain archer since New York. Since it had become apparent to her that somehow, despite her personal opposition to such things, she had developed feelings that she couldn't begin to understand.

Steve was smiling at Maria now, laughing about something. He leaned over and kissed her on the corner of her mouth. Natasha realized he was kissing her to lick a bit of ice cream off her face. She felt uncommonly embarrassed by the action, as if she was behaving like a voyuer. But she couldn't turn her eyes away, because, when Steve pulled back, the look on his face brought to mind a time, years ago, when Clint had looked at her the same.

It had meant nothing to her. She'd owed him a debt and she repaid him the only way she knew. But for Clint it had meant something. She had ignored all the warning signs, however, reasoning that since most men she'd known in her life had been liars about this, Clint was as well.

The couple's words were drifting to her ears now. She wanted to shut them out, wanted to continue to believe that people like her couldn't change. Wanted to believe that Clint could do better for himself and he should move on, stop carrying his torch for her. But if Captain America could forgive and love the likes of Maria Hill, why couldn't Clint do the same for her?

Natasha finally closed her eyes and turned away. These thoughts were useless. She was too damaged to ever have what Steve and Maria had, even with Clint.

"I love you."

Maria's hushed declaration to Steve made its way to Natasha's ears and truly surprised her. Those weren't words she ever expected Maria to say. But she glanced over and could see Steve smiling, touching Maria's face, returning her declaration of love.

Something that was a mix of self-pity and self-hatred twisted in the assassin's gut. She couldn't recall her parents well enough to remember the words from their lips. And everyone who had said them since had only been lying to or manipulating her. Except one, her traitorous mind forced her to recall.

_"I love you," Clint said._

_He'd never said that before. It had been two years since he'd saved her, one and a half since they'd become partners in bed as well as on the field. He'd never said anything so foolish._

_Natasha had laughed, thinking it was some sort of twisted joke, but she saw the hurt he let hang on his face._

_"You're not joking, are you?" She asked, astonished at the turn of events._

_He cautiously shook his head and she knew he realized immediately that she did not share his feelings._

_"Love is for children," she said, and leveled a cold look at him._

_"Natasha," he was going to try to reason with her, she assumed, so she quickly cut him off._

_"No," she said. "I don't know how you could have thought there was more to this."_

_Clint didn't reply, but the look in his eyes told her she'd hurt him deeply. At the time she hadn't cared, she'd thought Clint a fool for even having feelings. He was a soft American, she reasoned with herself._

_"It was just sex," she told him. "I owe you for saving me, for giving me an out from my former life."_

_He shook his head at her._

_"It doesn't have to be that way for you anymore," he said, in his voice she heard emotions she didn't know how to process._

They had argued and things had escalated quickly. It ended with Clint breaking off their physical relationship, and Natasha attempting to break off their professional one. Coulson would have none of the latter. He allowed them separate missions as he had in the past but he wouldn't allow her to dictate with whom she would work.

It took a year or more for them to re-build a workable relationship, then more to build a friendship. And Natasha found herself comfortable in that. At least until she received Coulson's call that night in Russia. In one moment, her whole world turned on its head and, since then, Natasha had felt her feelings for Clint spiraling out of control.

A movement broke her from her reverie and she watched as Steve and Maria stood from the table and walked back over to the kitchen. They continued to converse as Steve washed the bowl and spoons and Maria took each from his hand to dry, fingers lingering to touch longer than necessary. Steve leaned down to kiss Maria in what previously had been an unusual public display of affection. Since they'd made up in Austria, however, these moments, at least when they weren't at SHIELD, were becoming more common.

"You taste like caramel," Steve told Maria, and Maria, to Natasha's surprise, blushed.

Then he took her hand and they headed to the elevator. As the doors opened they both said "good-bye" to Natasha and she watched them enter, then she was alone.

She stared at the closed doors trying to regain control of the feelings that felt ready to pour out. She was getting soft, she thought. How could she function in the field with these sorts of feelings? She tried to ignore the knowledge that many of her fellow SHIELD agents did so every day without it affecting their performance. In fact, a good argument could be made that Steve and Maria did better when they were involved than they had when they were not.

The bell indicating an arrival in the lift dinged seconds before the doors slid open to reveal Clint. It was as if her darkest fears had summoned him, Natasha thought, and she knew something had shown on her face because Clint strode quickly across the room toward her, a concerned look on his face.

"Tasha, what's wrong?"

She was on her feet before he reached her and had pulled her mask back down to cover her emotions.

"Nothing," she said, but strangely found herself unable to say more as she walked to the elevator.

He didn't press, he never did. His patience in the field was legendary, but Natasha doubted anyone within SHIELD, or even the Avengers, knew how patient he truly was. He was waiting for her. Waiting for something he couldn't have, because it didn't exist. It couldn't. The Black Widow was aptly named, she could never give love, because she didn't have it in her to love. But as she looked at him through falsely cold eyes before the doors slid shut she wondered if that wasn't the very feeling she had, the one that she couldn't understand. The look on his face made her want that to be true.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Just a brief note about my WiP's. OK, I have a story due Monday for AvengersFest. It's pretty much done, just need to polish it up a bit. Of course, I don't think I can reveal which one is mine for a few more weeks so... (Never done one of these before, better go read the rules...for the hundredth time. lol) Talked about my HIMYM/Avengers cross-over yesterday, status is the same. And "Happiness Is..." my ongoing colab with Bella (aka gustin-puckerman) over at AO3 should have a new chapter by me by Friday. Just need to get back into the swing of home life after a week on the road.
> 
> Have a great Saturday. :)


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